Harvard minority president Claudine Gay., who checks box in the “Diversity checklist”, will keep her job after a week of calls for her ouster, after 700 faculty members signed a petition urging the school’s leadership to overlook her answers last week to Congress regarding antisemitism on campus, as well as allegations that she’s a prolific plagiarist.
“As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University,” reads a statement from Harvard’s board signed by all members except for Gay. “Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing.”
During Tuesday testimony in front of the US House Education and the Workforce Committee, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a Harvard grad, asked the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” violates their schools’ code of conduct or constitutes bullying or harassment, referring to calls for “intifada” chanted during several school protests.
Gay, along with the other presidents of said woke colleges, refused to commit to an answer – instead saying that it ‘depends on the context.’
The presidents of @Harvard, @MIT, and @Penn were all asked the following question under oath at today’s congressional hearing on antisemitism:
Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?
The… pic.twitter.com/eVlPCHMcVZ
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 5, 2023
Stefanik responded in a Tuesday post to X, sayig “There have been absolutely no updates to @Harvard’s code of conduct to condemn the calls for genocide of Jews and protect Jewish students on campus,” adding “The only update to Harvard’s code of conduct is to allow plagiarists as president.”
There have been absolutely no updates to @Harvard’s code of conduct to condemn the calls for genocide of Jews and protect Jewish students on campus.
The only update to Harvard’s code of conduct is to allow plagiarists as president.
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) December 12, 2023
The board also said it had reviewed allegations of plagiarism by Gay in October, and that an independent review “revealed a few instances of inadequate citation.”
On Sunday, journalists Chris Rufo and Chris Brunet posted evidence on X, including portions of Gay’s Ph.D. thesis.
First, Gay lifts an entire paragraph nearly verbatim from a paper by Lawrence Bobo and Franklin Gilliam’s, while passing it off as her own paraphrase and language.
This is a direct violation of Harvard’s policy: “When you paraphrase, your task is to distill the source’s ideas… pic.twitter.com/t6enHp3dN9
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023
In response, billionaire investor Bill Ackman penned a scathing open letter to Harvard’s governing board of directors, where he reiterated his call for Claudine Gay to be removed.
“In her short tenure as President, Claudine Gay has done more damage to the reputation of Harvard University than any individual in our nearly 500-year history,” the Harvard alumnus wrote on X, adding that Gay had “catalyzed an explosion of antisemitism and hate on campus that is unprecedented in Harvard’s history.”
Besides focusing on Gay’s handling of on-campus antisemitism, Ackman’s letter also accused her of presiding over “discriminatory hiring practices at Harvard.”
“The faculty have been told in no uncertain terms that candidates that do not meet DEI criteria will not be considered for certain faculty positions,” he wrote.
Gay apologized for her statements last week during the House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing, which however did not help her equal at UPenn, Liz Magill, who resigned over the weekend for exactly the same comments. Perhaps Magill wasn’t black enough, or didn’t have sufficiently diverse glasses?
As an aside, according to Bill Ackman – who tends to see everything in a self-reflexive light – he was a factor in Harvard’s decision.
I have been told now by two reporters that one of the factors that made it challenging for the @Harvard board to fire Gay was that they were concerned it would look like they were kowtowing to me. https://t.co/QrgFHUVEJh
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 12, 2023
Outstanding. Firing her was going to create the illusion that universities are salvageable. This helps more people realize where we are. https://t.co/Jn5v4QZ6zl
— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) December 12, 2023
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 09:30
